Kiddie Litter

You know who can’t, though? Kids. And that’s what’s really wrong with CBS’s latest contribution to the genre, Kid Nation.

Here’s a reality show aimed squarely at the age group it features: eight to 15 year olds. In Kid Nation, forty tweens and teens reside in Bonanza City, New Mexico (a privately owned town), where they are expected to create a functioning society complete with a government, while receiving only minimal supervision and instruction from adults.

The kids are equipped with stores, a town hall, and a (root-beer only) saloon, and are divided into colour-coded teams, each responsible for some facet of running the town. To their peers watching at home, it must seem pretty cool.

But the episode I saw infuriated me. The colour-coded teams compete for their role in the town (a new competition every three days — you know, to keep things fair), as well as a salary for said roles. The Upper Class — I’m not kidding, that’s what they’re called — receive $1.00 pay for the next three days and don’t have to work. The Merchants (second place) receive $0.50 for operating the stores. The Cooks (third place) are responsible for cooking and cleaning up, and receive $0.25 for their work. In last place are The Labourers, who clean the outhouses and trek to a well outside of town to get drinking water, for $0.10.

Nice, huh? Handy, weekly lessons in capitalist and elitist versions of society, class, and value. Keep the rich rich, Kid Nation instructs its young viewers, but don’t make them work for it, and keep the poor poor, while making sure they do all the work. Each episode teaches the ABCs of exploitation: The worst work, the least ideal work, receives the least amount of pay and requires the most amount of physical energy. And class-structure is on the take-home quiz: Those that can afford luxury, those that get paid the most, don’t have to do any work because those below them will. I’d wager a bet that if CBS could get away with dividing these kids into skin colour-coded groups, it would.

I thought reality TV had reached an unsurpassable low with The Bachelor, but with the introduction of Kid Nation, it’s really bottomed out. The parents of at least one of the kids are now trying to sue the show, despite signing a contract that prohibits them from doing so. If you ask me, every parent of every kid who’s watched this obscenity should be suing too.

Comments

Kids are the most influenced by advertising, it’s a fact. Now kids are having the ideas of caste and class marketed in an hour long tv show. What could possibly be wrong with that?

The idea that kids are learning about democracy is off base. Kids are learning about a highly idealized version of democracy, one without influence from special interests, attack ads, and corrupt politicians on the take. Instead of talking straight to our children about the world we live in, this show is talking down to them with altruist illusions.

“This is a good lesson for everyone–if you try to do better you might be able to move up in life.”

When moving up in life means becoming the equivalent of a CEO, or oligarch who does not have to do any actual work to reap the biggest reward, I am compelled to object. The whole idea of being as cutthroat as possible in order to rise above is not a value I will try to instill in my children.

Sounds to me like if you work hard and do your job well you succeed. I mean, every team has an equal chance to displace those in “elitist” positions. They’re only expected to perform to the level of expectation of their function in order to be rewarded. That sounds pretty cool to me. I wish it was that easy in the real world.

Why are you trashing a show you have clearly only seen once and don’t seem to understand? The class structure of the town represents the real world. However, unlike the real world each district has a chance to improve their position in life. This is a good lesson for everyone–if you try to do better you might be able to move up in life. Also, the Upper Class has often helped with work that needs to be done so to imply that they just sit around and spend their big paychecks is offbase. You also don’t mention that the kids with money have given money to the poorer ones and have bought items for all of them to use/enjoy.

You also fail to mention how the kids have worked together to better the town, encouraged homesick kids to stay, learned about democracy, etc. Your failure to even mention the Gold Star and how it is rewarded makes it clear you are more interested in bashing the show than anything else.

Kid Nation is a great show and it’s too bad that the critics (most of who have watched one episode at most) have trashed it. There are a lot of lessons for everyone to learn from this show and it depicts most kids in a good light. It also shows us the bad side of how kids (everyone actually) can be but overall KN1 has been a lot more entertaining and worth watching than say Survivor China.

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